


The Lost Library

by merriman



Category: Brambly Hedge - Jill Barklem
Genre: Gen, Libraries, Maps, secret rooms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 11:30:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13122822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merriman/pseuds/merriman
Summary: Primrose and Wilfred explore another passage off of the secret staircase.





	The Lost Library

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Linsky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linsky/gifts).



> In the cross-section illustrations of Old Oak Palace, there is a passage halfway up and to the left of the spiral staircase Primrose and Wilfred find that leads to a set of two doors and a tiny set of stairs. This is the passage Primrose and Wilfred explore here.

After Midwinter, Primrose was sorely tempted to go exploring on her own. The Old Oak Palace was her home, after all, and she'd always thought she knew it well. Of course there were parts of it her parents had said were forbidden, but they had always given her good reasons. Some places in the cellar had doors that would lock behind you if you weren't careful. A couple of rooms had floors that had been affected by rot before they had been repaired and her parents were just being cautious. A few other passages had rooms full of fragile items kept in storage for special occasions like Midwinter or weddings. But now there was a whole wing of the Palace she'd never known was there and she had the key.

The trouble was, it didn't seem fair to go exploring the staircase and the passages off of it without Wilfred. So Primrose waited. She waited quite patiently indeed. She waited through the days after Midwinter as they grew minutely longer. She waited through two snowfalls that weren't quite deep enough for Snow Balls. All the mice of Brambly Hedge worked together to keep everyone warm and fed through the winter and Primrose and her parents were no exception. It kept both her and Wilfred busy for two solid weeks.

"We should go exploring," Wilfred called to her as they pelted each other with snowballs on their way to the Store Stump to pick up supplies for the coming week.

"We definitely should," Primrose agreed.

But then the next day it was raining and no one left their homes. It was another full week before Wilfred showed up at the Palace asking if Primrose was free to play.

Primrose ushered him in quickly and they hurried up to the old storeroom and through the door behind the curtains.

"Which passage should we go through this time?" Primrose asked Wilfred.

"How about that one halfway up the stairs?" Wilfred suggested. "With the little hallway?"

Primrose nodded. "Good idea. And I tucked a lantern in here this time!" She held it up and lit it, then led the way up the stairs so they could see everything better.

With more light, she could see that there were paintings hung on the walls all around the stairwell. "Look at these!" she told Wilfred. She held the lantern close so they could inspect them. Some were merely paintings of the fields and trees of the Hedgerow and its surroundings, though Primrose did think they were very nicely done. Others were portraits of mice she didn't recognize. One showed three young mice in fancy clothes, seated before a Yule Log.

"These might be some of your ancestors," Wilfred told Primrose. 

"They might well be, but I have no idea who they are," Primrose admitted.

They continued upward, stopping when they came to the first passage that led off from the spiral staircase. Primrose shone her lantern into the entrance and peered down it. She could see a door just inside, which they'd noticed the last time. Primrose hesitated, then took a step into the hallway. She didn't want to find out too late that this was one of the riskier passages. 

Wilfred stepped into the hallway too and together they crept down and tried the first door. It opened with a soft squeak, but when Primrose lifted her lantern to look inside, it turned out to just be a closet full of cloaks. Wilfred took one down and wrapped it around himself. It was far too big and lined in some sort of shiny fabric that whispered as he put it on.

"How do I look?" he asked, turning up the collar.

Primrose couldn't help but laugh, though she didn't mean it to be nasty. Wilfred was also laughing, which was a relief. Primrose took down a cloak as well and found it was lined in soft velvet. She pulled it on and hugged it around her shoulders. They each took turns walking to the staircase landing and back, letting the cloaks trail on the dusty carpet in the hallway. Eventually though, they took them off and put them back.

"Should we keep going?" Wilfred asked once they'd brushed the dust off the cloaks as best they could and shut the closet door again.

"Of course!" Primrose said. She led the way, climbing a short flight of steps and opening the next door to find a small room full of cabinets. It appeared to have perhaps been a storeroom, but it wasn't storing anything anymore. Primrose made a note to herself to use it for any little treasures she found while she was out wandering once the weather was nicer.

They shut up the little empty storeroom and continued on, pausing to look at a frame on the wall at the top of another small flight of stairs. Inside the frame was a map. Examining it closely, Wilfred suddenly exclaimed "I've been there! That's the way up the hills!" 

"Oh!" Primrose said, looking a little closer. "We must have been going up there for generations!"

There was one little door at the end of the hallway and now they approached it.

"Think it's locked?" Wilfred asked. 

"I hope not," Primrose said. There was a little keyhole, and they hadn't found another key here. But when she tried the door, it opened easily. There was a little flight of stairs just inside, curving upward. The staircase bannister was carved with vines and the newel post was shaped like an acorn. Primrose led the way up, finding that the stairs got wider at the top, ending in front of a doorway that opened into a large room with a carpeted floor.

"Books!" she said, seeing what the room contained. It was two stories tall, with a walkway circling the room some distance over their heads and a ladder on little wheels that could reach the upper shelves. Little staircases at the end of the room on either side led up to the walkway and all around the room were shelves and shelves and shelves of books.

"Just books?" Wilfred said, sounding bored.

"Wilfred," Primrose admonished. "What if there are tales of grand adventures? What if there's a hidden treasure map to follow in one of these?"

Wilfred's whiskers perked up at that and he peered around the room. There were sconces at regular points, hung on pillars that held up the walkway. Primrose circled the room, finding a footstool near one of the shelves.

"This must have been for people to get to some of the books," she said to Wilfred as she dragged it over to one of the sconces and checked to see if there was a candle inside. Finding that there was, she lit it from her lantern, then did the same for one on the other side of the room. 

The whole library took on a warm, cozy glow from the sconces and they looked around to see what else was there. A couple of big armchairs sat in corners and an empty cart had been tucked in near a desk by the door. 

Wilfred looked up towards the walkway and then turned around. 

"Primrose!" he said. "Look! There's a whole space up there over us!" 

True enough, the ceiling above them looked to be part of the walkway, but much wider. 

"Let's go look!" Primrose carried her lantern over to the stairs at the far end, then carefully made her way up to the walkway. Once up there, she could see that the shelves held not just books with their spines out, but stands holding books on display, open to the pages they'd last been looked at. 

When they reached the area over the library entrance, they both saw the larger stand at the same time. It was big enough that the two of them could have sat on it together and had room for at least one more to join them. Resting on it was a giant book of maps.

"See?" Primrose said, rushing over to look at the book.

The first map the book opened to was a larger version of the one in the frame in the hallway outside. The second one Primrose recognized as the route down the stream to the coast. Her father had a small copy of it that he kept in his study. The later ones, however, neither Primrose nor Wilfred recognized. Primrose looked around and found a stand to hang her lantern on so it would let them look at the book. 

"I say we study these," Primrose declared after they'd looked long and hard at some of the other maps. There were pages after each map describing the routes to various points. "And someday? We'll visit them all."

Wilfred grinned at her and nodded. "Or find more places and make maps ourselves!"

"That would be the best!" Primrose agreed. "To adventures!"

"To adventures!" Wilfred said. Then he and Primrose dragged chairs over to the stand to start their studies. Some day, when they could, they would rediscover these paths and find even more of their own.

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot say how incredibly happy I am to see this fandom in Yuletide. The Secret Staircase is one of my favorite books as well!
> 
> Thank you to my very fast beta!


End file.
